Dell – More Inspiron Mini 9 Deals, Advice

Every few weeks, Dell has some very good deals on their 8.9-inch Intel Atom-based Inspiron Mini 9 netbooks. You can pick up the base for $249, but some of their pre-configured models with better features, and some of the upgrades are on sale or discounted.

For the most part, I would recommend against the baseline $249 model – the Ubuntu Linux distribution is good distribution for these ultraportables (and Dell has done a lot of work on their particular installs), but the storage is a 4GB Solid State Drive (SSD), and it wouldn’t take much to fill that up if you are offloading photos or video to it. I know that’s not what people intended these devices for, but that’s what people are doing with them.

If you are leaning towards an Inspiron Mini 9 and your budget is around $400, this is what I would do:

Some notes: – If you don’t plan on video chatting or using Skype, you can save $25. If you do plan on video chatting, Skype, etc., I highly recommend the 1.3MP webcam over the 0.3MP Webcam. It’s only a $10 difference, but the video is much improved on the other end (assuming the person you are talking to has a good internet connection). – $59 extra for a two year warranty with the added in-home repair if you qualify isn’t bad – $20 more gets you Bluetooth 2.1 – Depending on the model, you maybe able to go up to 2GB of RAM using third party memory, if you are comfortable with doing it yourself. Some models don’t offer that option.